Bad Things Happen

by Tim Buckley

  I pulled on my running shoes and went downstairs, the over-indulgence of the night before betrayed only by the dryness in my mouth and the faint odour of red wine from my skin. Outside, a petulant sky threatened rain. I turned away from the harbour and along the sea wall towards the cliffs again. I ran past the Master’s house and to the end of the road, where the asphalt gives way to dirt and the path narrows, tracks the coastline along the nose of Howth and climbs to the cliff tops. The sea below had lost its rhythm, grown angry and dark and swollen. With the breeze at my back, I found my stride and tempo, perhaps stolen from the sea below. My footfall felt light and I ran with no effort. The path climbed slowly to the top of some steep cliffs that dropped sharply into a little cove filled with angry water. Then it continued on towards the Baily’s winking light, past the Casana rock. It was off this point of the peninsula that the Queen Victoria steamship perished on the rocks, losing its passengers to the icy sea during a snowstorm.

  The brambles and the gorse, newly abundant after a warm and wet summer, strayed onto the trail and scratched gently at my legs. Then I rounded a bend that took the path up towards the Summit to my right. I stopped. There it was, perched high and solitary. My father’s house. I had always considered it an ugly house, so squat was it, so stark and grey against the bright gorse or blooming heather. When I said so to my father, he shrugged and said “I am inside looking out. It’s for those who are outside looking in to worry about its appearance.”

  And to be inside looking out was, I had to admit, dizzying. From the back stoop, the sun rose over the Baily lighthouse. From the front garden, it set over distant Ireland. All around, the sea and its moods seemed part of the house, built into its very fabric. In Winter, its hardy walls resisted howling gales and lashing rain. In Summer, the smell of earth and flora rose on the evening breeze and enveloped it in a magical haze. It was the source of his inspiration, and the root of his pain. He built it for my mother, and shared it with her for only a year. I often thought he should have moved away, but I think for him, part of her was still there and he could never leave. To the side, down a winding path and separated by a line of poplars to keep at bay the prying eyes of the public, he had built a gallery, a smaller version of the house. I remember, when he was given permission to build the gallery, the objections and protests from local officials and environmentalists, who claimed that there should be no further development at the Summit, that it should be protected and preserved. But the view prevailed that my father too was a local landmark deserved of protection and preservation, and the building was completed.

  I sat down on a rock facing out to sea. In the cold light of day, the Master’s argument made perfect sense. I had spent a long time in Paris digging for clues, and this girl in the house in Malahide was all I had to show for it. But I had come to Dublin only to find Aoife, and if she wasn’t here, then there was no reason for me to stay. Except that I might find out more, except that she might still come here, except that… that I had nowhere else to go.

  And what would I tell this girl? How would I explain my interest in Aoife to this stranger, who had treated me with such scepticism yesterday? I cursed the lack of composure that had concocted the story of the artist seeking a model. Why would I, who had never seen even a picture of the girl, travel on some wild goose chase to find her just so I could paint her? How would I justify that story under closer scrutiny? And I wasn’t even a painter, I was a graphical designer for a marketing agency. Not the sort to give up everything to seek out his muse. Those might be the actions of an impetuous young Lochlann, but not of his son. But I was unable to avoid the stark truth that she was all I had, and giving her up was conceding to the truth that I had nowhere else to look. I had no job and no reason to be in London nor, indeed, anywhere else.

  And yet despite the disappointments of the day before – or perhaps because of them – I found myself atop Howth Head in the rain with a renewed sense of unfounded optimism. Why? Surely nothing had changed since I sat in McGrath’s the previous afternoon. I still had no idea where she was and no clues. And I still had only one lead – a suspicious young French girl with no reason to trust nor to help me. But one thing had changed. For the very first time, I had told another person that I wanted to find my daughter and they had produced no objections, provided no counter-argument. In my own mind, when I had mulled over the rights and wrongs of my quest, I had always had nagging doubts. That it was a search born of selfish motivations. That it was a betrayal of Caitríona. That Aoife clearly did not want to be found. That she was happy the way she was. The Master had offered no such criticism, rather he had treated news of my intent as entirely natural. And that had, I realised, injected a whole new impetus to my search. I got up and began jogging back towards my hotel, far from clear what I was going to do, but fast arriving at the conclusion that I would stay awhile and do it here.

  I got back to the hotel, got showered and walked into the dining room just as the staff were clearing the buffet. Margaret, the maternal head-waitress who had for some reason chosen to take me under her wing, came bustling over.

  “Well, good morning – it is still morning, isn’t it?” she pretended to check her watch and beamed a broad smile. “Late one last night, was it?” She nudged me. I felt it unnecessary to point out that although it had indeed been a late one, I had already been up for two hours, so I just smiled and said, “Don’t suppose there’s any chance of a coffee, is there?”

  “Sit yourself down here, love,” she said, pulling back a chair and waving over to the other waitress who was busy preparing the restaurant for lunch. “Ania, is there any coffee left in that pot? Well, stick on a new one, there’s a good girl. I’ve a man in need over here.”

  She turned back to me.

  “Now, if we’re quick, I can get them to rustle you up something in the kitchen. How’s a couple of poached eggs and some toast?”

  I made the universal symbol of approval with a circled thumb and middle finger and said, “That would be spot on, you’re a star.”

  Ania, a tiny, timid Polish girl who looked like she should be getting ready for school, brought over a coffee, and a copy of the Irish Times that another guest had left behind. She blushed when I thanked her and scuttled off to clear more tables. Sipping the strong, tepid coffee, I flicked through the newspaper. Stories of gangland crime and political scandal competed for column inches with tales of soaring property prices and reviews of fashionable new restaurants in a dichotomous mélange that reflected an equal preoccupation with old neuroses and fascination with new diversions. Everything was different and yet everything had stayed the same.

  Margaret brought out my eggs and put the plate on the table.

  “There y’are now,” she said, “get that inside you.”

  She hesitated a moment and looked at me again, as though searching for an answer that would not come.

  “So is it over for a holiday you are? Or on business?”

  “A bit of both, I suppose,” I replied.

  Another pause.

  “You look awful familiar, have you stayed with us before?”

  “I haven’t stayed, but I’ve been in a few times.”

  “Maybe that’s it,” she said, not entirely satisfied. She patted my shoulder and said, “Well enjoy that now, and if there’s anything else you need, just shout.”

  I dawdled over breakfast in anticipation of what I knew was coming next. Eventually, I had no choice but to allow Margaret to finish the lunch-time preparations and so I made my way back to my room to collect my jacket. With nothing else left to delay me, I went downstairs and out the hotel front door.

  Despite the probably thousands of times many times I’d taken the number thirty-one bus to the Summit, it felt that morning like a journey into the unknown. I stood waiting at the bus stop trying to rehearse my lines, trying to think of some lines to rehearse. I had considered phoning ahead in warning, but didn’t know
what to say. I hoped instead that the words would just come when I was standing face-to-face with Lochlann. The bus was late, adding to the gnawing anxiety in my gut. A couple of times I made to walk away, back to my hotel, but resisted the temptation. Finally, a bus appeared up the main street. The journey to the Summit is short, shorter than I wanted and certainly short enough to have walked. We pulled in at the Summit car park, and I climbed off.

  It’s odd the things that mark our passage through life, the advance of age. A taste for tea. Comfortable if unfashionable clothes. And a growing appreciation of natural beauty. In all of the time I had lived in this house, I had seldom stopped to take in the vista that was spread out below it. And yet that morning, it was breathtaking. The bracken covered slopes of the Head, the cliffs, the lighthouse and the sea. To the North, on a clearer day, you can see past the Boyne Valley to Sliabh Donard. To the South, Dún Laoghaire, the Sugar Loaf and the Wicklow mountains. To the East, in better conditions, you can make out the distant shape of the hills in North Wales. To the West, Dublin Bay and the city skyline. Maybe to delay the inevitable, maybe to steady my nerves, I walked over to a van selling refreshments.

  “A coffee please. And a Cadbury’s Snack.” Just like old times.

  “No bother,” replied the vendor, his apron stained and his fingernails black with nicotine and dirt. “Not a bad oul’ day now, wha’?”

  I agreed and took the polystyrene cup. Satisfied that I was out of sight from the house, I sat on a rock and just looked. What tourists there were were out of sight and the panorama was silent and serene. The brooding clouds and persistent rain from earlier in the morning had drifted off on a fair breeze and the sun had emerged in a pale blue sky. A couple of fishing smacks bobbed out at sea, a large freighter made its way in towards the port of Dublin. The familiarity of it all enveloped me. I drank it in.

  Finally, I stood up. Dropping my empty cup in a litter bin, I took a deep breath, turned and walked towards the dirt track that led from the car park to the house. Outside the house was the tell-tale debris of construction – an untidy pile of broken bricks and planks, discarded old newspapers and cigarette butts. There was no sign of activity from the house, and a mobile cement mixer stood idle at the first of two gates, the public entrance to the gallery. A couple of hundred yards further on, the tall, solid wooden gate to the house itself was closed. I reached the first gate and looked through its wrought iron bars. There, standing by a huge oak desk in the little studio attached to the Gallery, was my father.

  He was reading the newspaper, a coffee cup on the desk by his right hand. I drew back involuntarily a fraction, so that the pillar afforded me some cover. But I could still see him, and had he looked up, he would have seen me cowering outside. Always a slim man, he looked, inevitably, more gaunt than when last I saw him, his face thinner, pinched even. His stoop, the curse of tall men, was more pronounced, but he carried the same prim and dapper air that I had always associated with him – dark suit sharply creased, white shirt brilliant against the dark tie, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. Not a white hair was out of place on his head, though it was just a little less dense, perhaps.

  He reached absent-mindedly for the cup, took a sip and put it back on its saucer, then looked up from his newspaper and out the window. He tilted his head almost imperceptibly, removed his glasses and stared at me. Neither of us moved for what felt like an age. He put the newspaper down on the desk, and disappeared from my view through the studio door. A moment later he emerged from the Gallery. I opened the gate and walked towards him.

  “Aengus,” he said as though greeting the postman, and offered me his hand.

  “Lochlann.” I shook his hand, and we looked into each other’s eyes. I searched for a hint of emotion, for even a hint of surprise, but his eyes gave nothing away.

  “You should have told me you were coming, I could have collected you from the airport.”

  “It’s fine. I got in yesterday, I had a few things to do.”

  “I see.”

  He half-turned towards the Gallery door and ushered me inside. The Gallery was empty save for a ladder and some tools leaning against the wall. The walls and floor had been stripped back to the stone, and the paint had been stripped from the doors. We walked into the studio. He had planned to work from this studio, but visitors to the Gallery with screaming children and inquisitive stares drove him back to the house. Apart from the huge desk and a chair, the studio was empty.

  “You say you got in yesterday?”

  “Yeah, I had a few things I needed to do in Dublin, so I flew over. On a bit of a whim really. It was late when I got finished and I didn’t want to just land on you unannounced. I stayed down in the Arms.”

  It was unconvincing and he was clearly unconvinced.

  “I see.” he nodded. “And how are you?”

  “I’m fine. You’re well?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  It was stilted and excruciating, but I was determined not to give in, not to fill the vacuum with the babbling small talk that I was trying to suppress.

  “Pauline is in the house. I’ll have her bring some coffee.”

  He called Pauline, his house-keeper of some thirty years, on the phone that connected the house and the Gallery, and then turned back to face me.

  “Are you staying in Dublin long?”

  “I’m not sure.” This answer was at least convincing, because it was true. The Master’s insistence that I should try to learn more about Aoife from the French girl in the house in Malahide had thrown a cat amongst the pigeons of my plans. “The rest of the week anyway.”

  I walked to the door and looked around the Gallery.

  “Doing some redecoration?”

  “Yes. I have an exhibition beginning in a couple of weeks, and this place frankly needed some work. They’ve had to go into Dublin for some filler or other, I’m not really sure what.”

  I walked out into the Gallery, looked up at the high vaulted ceiling criss-crossed with wooden beams. It gave the room a cathedral-like quality, made it feel much bigger than it was, and the effect was enhanced by the stained-glass windows at either end of the room. I stepped back and almost tripped over some string and small plastic sticks that had been left on the concrete floor. The crunching of my feet on the grit that covered the floor echoed in the bare room.

  I heard footsteps on the flagstones outside, and Pauline came in tray in hand. She shrieked and broke into a wide smile when she saw me.

  “Aengus! Come here to me, you!” She put the tray down on the desk in the studio, and bustled over to me. She threw her arms around me and hugged me vigorously. Then she stood back and pushed me to arms length.

  “Let me have a look at you. Are you eating at all?” She shook her head disapprovingly. “When did you get here? How long are you staying? I’ll make up your room. You’re a terrible man for not lettin’ us know you were comin’!”

  “Don’t go to any trouble, Pauline, I’m not sure how long I’ll be here…” I shot a sideways glance at my father.

  “Thank you, Pauline,” he said, “if you wouldn’t mind preparing Aengus’ room.”

  “Of course, of course I will. I’ll do it now. And you’ll be wanting some proper home-cooked food this evening – needing it, I dare say! I’ll go and get your room ready, you can tell me all about what you’ve been up to later.”

  She hurried to the door, stopped and turned around. “It’s great to see you,” she said earnestly. And with that she was gone.

  She had just walked out the door when I heard her voice again.

  “Arra hallo, Críostóir, and how are you doing? You’re not going to believe who’s in there – seriously, you’re not! Go on, go in and see! I’ve just brought in some coffee, I’ll get you a mug.”

  The Master walked in and waved his hand.

  “Morning all, and what a grand morning
it is.” Walking over to my father, he put his hand on his arm and pointed his other hand at me. “I came across this hooligan last night, Lochlann. He said he was coming up here this morning – I should have called and warned you so you could have been out!”

  “You’re looking a bit better today, young Aengus,” he said to me, “you were looking tired when I saw you last night, it was a hard oul’ day I’d say? You slept well?”

  “I did, Master,” I smiled, grateful to him for sparing me the need to fabricate further. Grateful also that the tortuous conversation with my father, if it could even have been described as conversation, had been at least temporarily suspended. I think now that he came to the house for that very reason, to play the neutral peace broker.

  I looked at my father as he and the Master discussed some story from the village. I tried to remember if there had ever been a time when we had talked easily with each other, shared stories and experiences, debated opinions and ideas. But time blurs the memory so that we remember things either as we want them to be remembered or as inevitably coloured by what came after. I know I loved my father, but what inspired that love, if indeed love it really was? What, after all, is the love of a child for a parent? Isn’t it born of the hero-struck infant’s dependence on his parents and the certainty that there is nothing they can’t do, no obstacle they can’t overcome? And as we grow and learn more of the world, we realise that they are neither infallible nor invincible, but with the realisation that the world is a tough place comes an admiration that they have navigated it so surely and a respect for their skills and what they have achieved. And with age and growing maturity comes gratitude for what they have done and sacrificed. And finally, sometimes, comes a friendship borne of shared experiences, shared values, shared passions. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, love is born and grows almost unnoticed, unnurtured.